BJD workers paralyse Dhamra port

The BJD sarpanchs of eight panchayats in the periphery of Dhamra port and party activists led by the local zilla parishad member and Chandbali block chairman forcibly closed the port gate, stopped port operations and rail movement.

As a result, the port activities came to a grinding halt. The local BJD leaders staged demonstrations in front of the port gate from early morning to late evening, raising demands like recruitment of local youths, awarding civil and manpower contracts to local contractors and expediting periphery development work.

All efforts by the district administration, police and port authorities proved futile as the ruling party workers remained adamant. The agitators also rejected the plea of the Bhadrak collector to allow port operations to prevent huge revenue loss. Armed police forces were deployed at the spot to avert any untoward incident. The move of the BJD agitators came in for strong criticism from the Opposition Congress.